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8 Days With
Western Outdoors
You should have been there when anglers talking part in the Western Outdoors Sportfishing Adventure on the American Angeler scored big on wahoo, tuna marlin and yellowtail.
Backlit and glistening in a vibrant Baja sunset, the rich, amber flanks of a large kelp sweep silently past as the American Angler sets up for its trolling pass. The paddy hasn't even cleared the corner before the first rod goes off . . . followed by a second and then a third. Spastic explosions ensue, as kaleidoscopic gyrations of turquoise, yellow and green erupt across our wake . . . the wildly leaping dorado beckoning us to battle.
Maynard Bill is the first to grab his trolling rod, and finds himself ducking and weaving through a picket fence of bait fishermen and iron heads, who are just now letting fly into the Angler's churning propwash. Brad Willsey hangs one on bait, followed immediately by others -- as the stern transforms into a riot of arced rods, freaked-out flatheads and hooting fishermen.
It's the first full-rack bite of our Adventures in Sportfishing 8-day charter for Western Outdoors readers (October 6-14, 1996), and yes, we're having serious fun. The eight to 15-pound dorado chew full speed for 20 minutes before petering out. But we've had a taste now, and everyone is pumped for the next morning, when we're due to reach the wave-lashed moonscape known as Alijos Rocks.
Nancy Shubin shows genuine awe, and then a big
smile, over her first yellowfin tuna (sequence), caught at Alijos
Rocks, 180 miles off the Baja coast; with her is American
Angler deckhand Mike Miller.
After showers and cocktail hour, we're informed by Captain Brian Evans that we will try for giant squid tonight. This way, he says, everyone who is dying to fish the Rocks' famed yellowtail will have what should be the killer bait.
For two hours that evening, the Western Outdoors group makes squid, using traditional barbless squid jigs to connect with one to five-pound "water cannons." Due to the volume of water -- and ink -- these jet-propelled nightmares can squirt, we have an unbelievably good time. Everyone is loose . . . joking and horsing around, and exploding into fits of laughter whenever one of us gets blasted. (Which is fairly often, actually.) The oddball scene reveals an even greater oddity when one of our jigs attracts a scabbard fish -- a long, thin, silvery thing with hellacious teeth that looks like an unholy cross between an oarfish and a barracuda.
It's a big, weird, wonderful ocean, friends.
The anchor splashes down at Alijos Rocks at 3 a.m., and night crew immediately goes to work with dropper loops at 50 fathoms -- but other than Jack Chang's grinning moray eel, there's nothing much happening. When the morning tuna bite fails to materialize, Capt. Evans begins to troll Alijos' craggy, volcanic pinnacles -- a tactic that produces two short-biting wahoo on Braid Marauders and, ultimately, a 35-pound yellowfin tuna. Singularly unimpressed, Evans sets up on another ridge, where a sardine entices a beautiful 28-pound yellowtail for Mike Heflin.
Striped marlin hookups were common.
There's just enough tuna sign to keep us glued to the spot, and by noon the bite begins, with the grade of fish seeming to improve with every hookup. The yellowfin average between 35 and 50 pounds, with some of the larger tuna pushing 60 to 75 pounds. Our losses are high, however, as hordes of rudderfish and triggers swarm the boat, attacking our sardines and mackerel before the baits can reach the tuna zone, or else nibbling on the reflective monofilament, weakening the line and causing break-offs when the right bites come.
Most of our tuna are caught on 40-pound line, but Michael Halapoff, always a maverick, breaks out his 25-pound jig stick and proceeds to slay one of the day's bigger tuna -- but only after a prolonged fight that leaves a winded Halapoff heading for a cold one.
Amidst the yellowfin, there's also some variety to be had, as Steve Ownbey discovers a 45-pound bigeye tuna, while Dan Shubin bangs out the trip's first wahoo, a 30-pounder taken on straight mono. Throwing a Surface Cruiser off the bow, Andy Brotherton enjoys the thrill of watching a big dorado come up and slam his plug.
Jack Chang gets a kick out of his big moray
eel.
When the bite slows by midafternoon, Evans abandons Alijos Rocks and points the American Angler east towards the Baja coast where, 160 miles away, the Ridge and its huge, swift wahoo await.
Ten miles off the Rocks, we spy a massive leatherback turtle that's easily 600 or 700 pounds. It's six feet long, and its shell measures four or five feet across. The turtle's head is the size of large watermelon, and the animal isn't the least bit intimidated by our approach. Instead, it calmly continues feeding on a 10 by 10-foot, floating ochre carpet that we speculate is some kind of gelatinous egg mass. We leave the leatherback in peace -- but not before everyone gets a long, appreciative look at a bizarre yet beautiful sight in the wilds of Alijos . . . truly one of the most isolated spots on the planet.
We reach the Ridge by sun up, and though it's wide open on the 23 Fathom Spot for yellowtail and tuna, their size is disappointing, and soon we're cutting morning glass in search of wahoo. Before the sun can pry itself off the horizon, we get our first stop, and the pattern for a great day is set. Braid Marauders dragged short in the foaming wake are raising 'hoos like clockwork, giving those throwing bait or wahoo bombs their chance for glory.
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